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This Research Report is the product of a review of the legal regime for permit/licensing/certification of businesses to enable them operate in Ghana, and administration of questionnaires and interviews to ascertain the actual cost of administrative corruption and confirm implementation of certain parts of the recommendations contained in the PEF Research Report 

The research analysis of administration of questionnaire on the cost of corruption and stakeholder engagements on research findings on the cost of corruption in the licensing regime for businesses in Ghana.

Business Owners, Observers and Staff of Administering agencies recognize that “facilitation fees”, (unofficial payments) that they make to staff of the Administering Agencies to avoid delays in the licensing regime constitutes administrative corruption. The givers justified their actions on the grounds of wanting to avoid unnecessary delays and its attendant costs to their businesses, and staff of Administering agencies justified taking these fees for personal use or as transportation to the field, which indeed facilitates the process. 

 

Administrative corruption is generally defined as profiteering from public posts. It includes a public officer’s abuse of roles, powers, or resources in public bureaucracies.3 Ghana law defines a public official to include any person holding an office by election or appointment under any enactment or under powers conferred by any enactment.

Employees of Administering Agencies are therefore “public officers” for purposes of administrative corruption as these persons are appointed under an enactment and exercise their powers pursuant to an enactment.

A public officer who, to do or for doing an act required of him or her as a public officer, secretly accepts, or agrees or offers secretly to accept any valuable consideration for his or her personal benefit is presumed by law to have acted corruptly. The presumption of corruption by a public officer therefore applies irrespective of whether the valuable consideration was received before or after the act by the public officer on account of the public office.

The process of acquiring licenses and permits for business operations are key determinant of private sector development and economic growth and for that matter, the nature and mode of implementation of these licenses and permits have great effects on the private sector. Any delays caused in acquiring these licenses and permits add to the cost of doing business.

Introduction

The Private Sector is that part of an economy that is neither owned nor controlled by the state or Government but, is run, by individuals (Investopedia, 2016). The private sector therefore encompasses all profit making businesses and, to stretch the definition, all not-for-profit and charitable entities which, like the private sector, is not owned or controlled by the Government, formally known as the Voluntary sector.

As an umbrella private sector business association charged with the responsibility of private sector business development in this country, the Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) is concerne9 about the low patronage of Made-in-Ghana goods. There seems to be an unexplained preference for foreign goods, as opposed to locally manufactured goods. Such consumer attitudes impact negatively on the growth of local industries and the situation

This Report is in response to an invitation from the Private Enterprise Foundation, PEF, to submit a technical proposal to provide consulting services for the study on the Impact of Power Outages on Manufacturing Industries in Ghana. This assignment was undertaken as part of PEF's key strategic objective to maintain a close relationship with private sector business organizations and as a lead organization that plays an advocacy role in influencing policies and regulations of government.

Ghana's Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) seeks to influence "government policies and regulations in order to create an enabling environment for a private sector-led economic growth strategy and national development".   Associations are a group of people joined together for a shared purpose; in the case of business associations, the commonality is the business of members. Business Associations the world over have a potential to facilitate the development of a strong private sector by representing the interests of business and providing specific support to their members.  The recognition of this truism has informed the current drive of the Foundation to explore options available in strengthening business associations (used in this context to include trade associations). This is because the potential of business associations to contribute to a conducive policy environment would not be attained if the associations remain weak.

PEF wishes to encourage small business units to come together to form larger business units, and so take advantage of the benefits of such units with respect to funding, management   expertise  and technology.The Ghanaian business scene is dominated by a large number of small "one-man" businesses that make quite a substantial contribution to the national economy.    However, such small businesses are highly constrained by limited access to funding, management expertise and efficient technology.Though the benefits of forming large business units with respect to funding, management expertise and technology are generally acknowledged, the local businesses still remain small and are unwilling to pool resources together to form larger business units.

Ghana with a population of over 20 million has only about 250,000 fixed telephone lines, mainly in Accra   and Kumasi. With the advent   of privatization in the   telecommunication sector, there are presently six operators providing voice telephony   and the number of telephone lines is said to have increased considerably. In spite of all these, the quality of reception is poor and a greater majority of people in the country are y et to have access to telephone services.  There   are also delays and difficulty in accessing   telephone liines by private businesses.  The problem of inadequate facilities and service delivery in the  sector  thus becomes pronounced.

The debate on privatizing state-run companies such as Ghana Water Company Limited, and making them more efficient has been going on for some time now. Until any concrete decision is taken, efforts have to be made to ensure efficient services delivery to tt1e private sector.

Water is one of the major inputs in industrial activities. Are the attitudes of the?

GWCL staff and the processes of service delivery supportive to the private sector in Ghana? If yes, how can we maintain the standards and work towards improvement? If no, what are the bottlenecks and the measures needed to make the firm's activities more supportive to the private sector than before?

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